First, it’s important to point out that pretty much all the research on what people call “laziness” focuses on procrastination.
Again, this is because laziness is a lay expression, not a formal term, and it’s also a matter of subjective opinion. One person’s idea of “lazy” may be another’s idea of a hard day’s work. If you meant to do something and didn’t, you may call that laziness, but a psychologist would label it procrastination.
And psychologists have studied procrastination and what causes it.
A Coping Mechanism
“People think procrastination is a time-management issue, but it’s really an emotion-management issue,” Pychyl says. “The thought of completing a task brings up anxiety or just general aversiveness, and a person can get rid of those negative emotions by putting off the task.”
Procrastination is a logical and effective “coping mechanism” for dealing with unpleasant feelings, he explains. Research published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences supports the notion that putting things off can reflect an attempt to cope with negative emotions that arise when people have to do something unpleasant or difficult.
As an example, Pychyl says, is schoolwork. For most kids, this work is an “unnatural ask” that requires young people to take part in a culturally constructed series of learning exercises that don’t fit with their impulses or interests. This is why so many young students put their work off until the last minute. “Procrastination is a quite rational reaction to an unpleasant situation,” he says.
But however rational it may be, some people procrastinate more than others.
Age
Pychyl says this may be due in part to brain development. The brain’s prefrontal cortex, which helps in planning, decision-making, concentration, and other “executive functions,” does not fully mature until a person’s twenties, he explains. Since this is the brain region that helps control emotional impulses and guides behaviors that require a longer-term outlook, it’s no wonder young people tend to procrastinate more than adults.
“Kids are operating much more out of a pleasure principle,” he says. For an adolescent brain, it’s hard to prioritize school work — a form of toil that may not provide any immediate benefits or incentives — over playing video games.
The Habitual Behavior Factor
A problem that may arise is that procrastination, like any other behavior, can become habitual. If your brain learns to cope with unpleasant tasks by avoiding them, it can be hard to shake this response.
“Habits come from repeating actions consistently that give you some immediate enjoyment,” says Wendy Wood, PhD, a habit researcher and provost professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Procrastination can check all those boxes: Putting off unpleasant chores can offer a sense of relief, which is enjoyable. And so like other bad habits, procrastination can snowball.
Environment
Other researchers have notedthat laziness is a behavioral attribute that we may learn (and be more likely to practice) because of others. If your colleagues mess around and blow off work, you’re more likely to do the same.
Energy and Willpower (and Sleep)
Energy and willpower — or a lack of both — can also lead to procrastination. Researchers have shown that when shift workers are sleep deprived, their willpower drops and they become more likely to procrastinate.
Personality Characteristics
Pychyl says personality characteristics can also contribute to procrastination. These include low conscientiousness — “so people who are not planful, dutiful, and organized,” he explains — as well as impulsivity. Even some forms of perfectionism — a desire to meet some high self-defined standard — can load tasks with unpleasant emotional baggage that can lead to procrastination, he says.
Distraction
Last but not least, distraction — something many of us are struggling with these days — is a major driver of procrastination. “These technologies we have now are really problematic, it’s why we call them weapons of mass distraction,” he says.
Tech-based alerts, social media sites, and other enticements make it more difficult for many of us to get started on a difficult task and to stick with it, he says. And research in Computers in Human Behavior has shown that social media use (and high smartphone use) are both predictive of some forms of academic procrastination.
And it’s worth noting that others, like Price, hold the view that this thing we call laziness does not actually exist because there are always valid explanations for a person’s apparent indolence.
